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A New Species Of Giant Ape?

Posted by timothy on from the afleckus-trismegistus dept.

jd writes "The New Scientist, The Age (an Australian newspaper), Daily Telegraph (a British newspaper), BBC, and the Discovery Channel are talking excitedly about a strange primate, found in the Congo. Locals say it is notorious for killing fully-grown adult lions. Optimists hope that it is a new species, maybe related to the gorilla. Pessimists claim it's an overgrown chimpanzee. In either case, primates aren't discovered every day, making this a rare find indeed."

6 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. Didn't we discuss this last year? by joeykiller · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wasn't this story reported -- and discussed here -- in august last year as well?

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08 /1 0/0014206&tid=134&tid=14

    (Of course, I didn't RTFA)

    1. Re:Didn't we discuss this last year? by metlin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, but while the previous article seemed uncertain of the discovery, these seem fairly conclusive.

      Plus, they have taken pictures of them while earlier on they were mostly speculative. Not to mention first hand physiological details.

      Not really a repeat - more of a follow up, IMHO.

  2. Re:no photos? by Arker · · Score: 5, Informative

    Try here.

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  3. Re:whoa...actually went back and RTFA... by lee7guy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, the BBC article removed the quote from it's context.

    From Daily Telegraph:


    "We could hear them in the trees, about 20 feet away," she said. "My tracker made a sound of an injured duiker [antelope] and four came rushing through the brush towards me.

    "If this had been a bluff charge, they would have been screaming to intimidate us. These guys were quiet. And they were huge. They were coming in for the kill. I was directly in front of them, and as soon as they saw my face, they stopped and disappeared."

    The apes thought they were going after a wounded antelope, when they realized they had been tricked, they ran away.

    Guess BBC found it more "dramatic" out of context.

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  4. Re:no photos? by efatapo · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://karlammann.com/bondo.html They printed the phylogenetic tree as well as wrote up the findings. I lazily skimmed the text but the phylogenetic tree makes it look not that exciting. A new subspecies but not very diverse from other known species. Enjoy~

  5. Re:It's also reknowned for its fearsome battle cry by tpgp · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Developers, developers, developers!"

    if you don't know what he's talking about

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